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That is the point of the free market. But deplatforming certain kinds of offensive content is regressive. For instance, in the not-so-distant past many America

That is the point of the free market. But deplatforming certain kinds of offensive content is regressive. For instance, in the not-so-distant past many Americans found interracial marriage morally abhorrent. Wikipedia says only 5% of Americans thought interracial marriage should be legal in the 1950s. In today’s environment, that leads to deplatforming those who would’ve supported marriage equality. This is not something we would desire. People are full of prejudices. I’m sure our grandchildren will look back in horror at ours. Let’s not deplatform them for that.

obedm 5y ago
I always think I can draw the line in the sand as a very rational and relatively well read person. But then I remember that the best thinkers the world has ever seen (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, ad nauseum) were never able to look beyond their noses to see the human suffering of others. Aka, they were perfectly happy to have a society run by slaves, to ignore the plight of the poor and sick, etc.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  That may be true of Plato, Aristotle, etc. But one thing I have learned from history is that there is almost always a contingent of people that do find terrible things like slavery abhorrent and were even outspoken about it. But if you are an elite, and benefit greatly from something, you are probably much less likely to be outspoken against it.
  - obedm 5y ago
    I've never heard of any ancient philosopher being abhorrent about slavery and the like and I've read that there weren't any. Could you point to some readings if you're aware of it? I'd love to know
    - MatteoFrigo 5y ago
      Seneca had a somewhat more humane attitude towards slavery. See e.g. https://figsinwinter.medium.com/seneca-to-lucilius-47-on-slaves-and-human-beings-f13602f62b46 https://figsinwinter.medium.com/seneca-to-lucilius-47-on-sla...
      - hutzlibu 5y ago
        And then from inside your link, there seemed to be even more critical voices: "Then again, the Stoics were famous for challenging common conceptions, and the founder of the school, Zeno of Citium, had declared slavery an evil in his Republic"
        obedm 5y ago
        He acknowledged their existence but as far as I know, he, not anyone else, said that slaving people was "wrong" or shouldn't be done. It's important to note that Ceneca and the famous stoics (Marcus Aurelius for example) were rich and benefitted greatly from the status quo.
        hutzlibu 5y ago
        So now I think it is a shame, that I barely ever heard of him, despite having heard from all the others great (but slavery endorsing) greek minds. And sure, slavery was very common everywhere at that time. One more reason maybe to celebrate early free thinkers?
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      Most philosophers likely come from the elite classes in the past. You don't have time to sit around and think and write if you have to worry where your next meal comes from.
- jampekka 5y ago
  Perhaps these are the "best thinkers that the world has ever seen" because they said stuff that was beneficial for (some) powers that be. E.g. Plato-Aristotle-line/myth is directly linked to Alexander the Great. Worth noting that there were very influential thinkers and entire schools of thought that looked beyond their noses. A good example are cynics/Diogenes the Dog, who may well have been more influential than the Platonic line. E.g. (as per anecdotes we have left) Alexander the Great had great respect to Diogenes, who totally ridiculed Alexander's (and Plato's) position. Also stoics (e.g. Marcus Aurelius) are quite direct descendants of cynics and not ashamed of this at all. More I look into classical philosophy, or the "myth" of academia, more it seems that it's mostly a fabrication of perhaps scholastics.
  - obedm 5y ago
    This is a very important point. Maybe there were some great philosophers in their time that argued against it and were ridiculed or didn't reach us through time. I'm curious what you mean by being a fabrication? Their ideas were real and they've shaped history throughout time one way or another
    - jampekka 5y ago
      Fabrication is perhaps too strong a term, but the separation between history and myth has not always been that strong. For example it was common (and accepted) to write stuff in some famous person's name. I don't think it makes the content itself any worse, but it's difficult to know what was really historical. I don't formally study this, but such problems become quite apparent when I try to e.g. find out historical sources for some philosophical statements or anecdotes. Probably not that different from how people attribute all sorts of "smart stuff" to Einstein. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha Edit: by "scholastic fabrication" I mean that scholastics spent a lot of time "interpreting" especially Aristotle (and tried to make it compatible with the Bible). I'm guessing a lot of what we think is "greek philosophy" may be from these interpretations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  You're making the mistake of assuming morality from your current time, place, and culture is universal morality. You find slavery morally objectionable because the current cultural understanding is that slavery is morally objectionable. Future obedm might find it equally abhorrent that you, for example, routinely consumed the flesh of sentient animals or openly released carbon into the atmosphere for personal gain, or probably a million other things that will be completely unimaginable in polite society 500 years from now.
  - obedm 5y ago
    Haha you mirrored the argument I've made many times before. The eating meat part I feel is likely to be the thing that will change. But that's an obvious one. What else will be seen as "barbaric" that we don't even think of challenging? Working 8 hours a day? Having kids? Going outside or staying inside? I remember the Greeks were not big on private property and instead took great pride in their public buildings. The polar opposite of our society now
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      > I remember the Greeks were not big on private property Then you first have to make something other than private property the backbone of average peoples' pension funds. I don't have ideas, you?
wslack 5y ago
Tolerance of wrong viewpoints is different than the active support algorithms give to discovering false content.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  It’s not “active” support if the algorithm acts in a content neutral fashion, for example based on engagement metrics. In such a situation, changing the algorithm to artificially not let allegedly-false content be discovered is actively supporting the opposing viewpoints. Leaving the algorithm to act without artificial content-specific modification is not active support. Tolerance would be leaving the algorithms alone.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    I disagree. I think the algorithms are fundamentally immoral because they promote content that gets "engagement". Which includes and in many cases prioritizes content that people have engaged with because it causes a negative response. Rather than pushing good* content, it prioritizes lowest common denominator, reality tv, desperate pundit, fast food, self congratulatory, outrage porn garbage. *By good, I simply mean thoughtful, high quality, factual, educational, or otherwise uplifting content regardless of politics
    - ShroudedNight 5y ago
      I don't think "Good" is unambiguous enough to trust the platforms to promote it. How about simply "related"? Show people the content they've explicitly asked for. If people explicitly ask for outrageous content, then fine, but we needn't force feed it to society.
      - XorNot 5y ago
        Algorithms don't work like this though: content that feeds outrage disproportionately outranks content which doesn't. Algorithms don't discriminate "content" by it's actual content: they keyword match and look for clicks, and build a pretty perfect radicalization pathway more easily then they build a discourse [1]. You have probably experienced this: almost everyone has the experience of wanting to see some particular YouTube video, but opened it in an Incognito tab (or just avoided it) explicitly because they know the topic will prime the YouTube homepage to fill with nothing but things you don't want to see. [1] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/youtube-far-right-radicalization-study-877061/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/youtube-fa...
spaced-out 5y ago
At the same time, the Civil Rights Movement aggressively used boycotts, protests, and shaming campaigns to push for racial equality.
- synergy20 5y ago
  you're out if you still think about 'equality', it's all about 'equity' these days, 'equality' is no longer good enough.
  - spaced-out 5y ago
    Maybe that's your opinion, but you don't speak for everyone.
    - synergy20 5y ago
      it's sarcasm, sadly these days the main media and our school districts are all about 'equity', teachers are all re-trained to use equity instead of equality right now.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    The subtle difference you’re pointing out is significant. Equality under the law is moral and ethical. Forced equality of outcomes is immoral and unethical, and is just collectivist Marxism rebranded.
IX-103 5y ago
There's a difference between disagreeing with a position and finding it "abhorrent". Your evidence with regards to interracial marriages does not support your point. Whether "something can be discussed" is an entirely different question than than "do you support position X". The very fact that they were able to take a poll is strong evidence that talking about it was not verboten.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  This is simply not true, and a strange argument. Child pornography is discussed because people find it abhorrent. US politics has largely revolved around the prevention of interracial relationships for at least a century and a half, so the idea that people didn't (and don't) find them abhorrent is bizarre and ahistorical.
  - guythedudebro 5y ago
    > US politics has largely revolved around the prevention of interracial relationships for at least a century and a half What
  - IX-103 5y ago
    Again you are conflating finding the discussion of a practice as abhorrent with finding the implementation of a practice abhorrent.
XorNot 5y ago
> In today’s environment, that leads to deplatforming In the historical environment it led to people being killed by the neighborhood mob when they decided to lynch the black man[1] In todays environment it leads to genocide[2]. It is morally laughable to compare deplatforming to the consequences of the free spread of misinformation, propaganda and hate rhetoric. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#Social_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

obedm 5y ago

I always think I can draw the line in the sand as a very rational and relatively well read person. But then I remember that the best thinkers the world has ever seen (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, ad nauseum) were never able to look beyond their noses to see the human suffering of others. Aka, they were perfectly happy to have a society run by slaves, to ignore the plight of the poor and sick, etc.

jjeaff 5y ago
That may be true of Plato, Aristotle, etc. But one thing I have learned from history is that there is almost always a contingent of people that do find terrible things like slavery abhorrent and were even outspoken about it. But if you are an elite, and benefit greatly from something, you are probably much less likely to be outspoken against it.
- obedm 5y ago
  I've never heard of any ancient philosopher being abhorrent about slavery and the like and I've read that there weren't any. Could you point to some readings if you're aware of it? I'd love to know
  - MatteoFrigo 5y ago
    Seneca had a somewhat more humane attitude towards slavery. See e.g. https://figsinwinter.medium.com/seneca-to-lucilius-47-on-slaves-and-human-beings-f13602f62b46 https://figsinwinter.medium.com/seneca-to-lucilius-47-on-sla...
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      And then from inside your link, there seemed to be even more critical voices: "Then again, the Stoics were famous for challenging common conceptions, and the founder of the school, Zeno of Citium, had declared slavery an evil in his Republic"
      - obedm 5y ago
        He acknowledged their existence but as far as I know, he, not anyone else, said that slaving people was "wrong" or shouldn't be done. It's important to note that Ceneca and the famous stoics (Marcus Aurelius for example) were rich and benefitted greatly from the status quo.
        hutzlibu 5y ago
        So now I think it is a shame, that I barely ever heard of him, despite having heard from all the others great (but slavery endorsing) greek minds. And sure, slavery was very common everywhere at that time. One more reason maybe to celebrate early free thinkers?
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    Most philosophers likely come from the elite classes in the past. You don't have time to sit around and think and write if you have to worry where your next meal comes from.
jampekka 5y ago
Perhaps these are the "best thinkers that the world has ever seen" because they said stuff that was beneficial for (some) powers that be. E.g. Plato-Aristotle-line/myth is directly linked to Alexander the Great. Worth noting that there were very influential thinkers and entire schools of thought that looked beyond their noses. A good example are cynics/Diogenes the Dog, who may well have been more influential than the Platonic line. E.g. (as per anecdotes we have left) Alexander the Great had great respect to Diogenes, who totally ridiculed Alexander's (and Plato's) position. Also stoics (e.g. Marcus Aurelius) are quite direct descendants of cynics and not ashamed of this at all. More I look into classical philosophy, or the "myth" of academia, more it seems that it's mostly a fabrication of perhaps scholastics.
- obedm 5y ago
  This is a very important point. Maybe there were some great philosophers in their time that argued against it and were ridiculed or didn't reach us through time. I'm curious what you mean by being a fabrication? Their ideas were real and they've shaped history throughout time one way or another
  - jampekka 5y ago
    Fabrication is perhaps too strong a term, but the separation between history and myth has not always been that strong. For example it was common (and accepted) to write stuff in some famous person's name. I don't think it makes the content itself any worse, but it's difficult to know what was really historical. I don't formally study this, but such problems become quite apparent when I try to e.g. find out historical sources for some philosophical statements or anecdotes. Probably not that different from how people attribute all sorts of "smart stuff" to Einstein. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha Edit: by "scholastic fabrication" I mean that scholastics spent a lot of time "interpreting" especially Aristotle (and tried to make it compatible with the Bible). I'm guessing a lot of what we think is "greek philosophy" may be from these interpretations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism
idiotsecant 5y ago
You're making the mistake of assuming morality from your current time, place, and culture is universal morality. You find slavery morally objectionable because the current cultural understanding is that slavery is morally objectionable. Future obedm might find it equally abhorrent that you, for example, routinely consumed the flesh of sentient animals or openly released carbon into the atmosphere for personal gain, or probably a million other things that will be completely unimaginable in polite society 500 years from now.
- obedm 5y ago
  Haha you mirrored the argument I've made many times before. The eating meat part I feel is likely to be the thing that will change. But that's an obvious one. What else will be seen as "barbaric" that we don't even think of challenging? Working 8 hours a day? Having kids? Going outside or staying inside? I remember the Greeks were not big on private property and instead took great pride in their public buildings. The polar opposite of our society now
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    > I remember the Greeks were not big on private property Then you first have to make something other than private property the backbone of average peoples' pension funds. I don't have ideas, you?

wslack 5y ago

Tolerance of wrong viewpoints is different than the active support algorithms give to discovering false content.

throwawaysea 5y ago
It’s not “active” support if the algorithm acts in a content neutral fashion, for example based on engagement metrics. In such a situation, changing the algorithm to artificially not let allegedly-false content be discovered is actively supporting the opposing viewpoints. Leaving the algorithm to act without artificial content-specific modification is not active support. Tolerance would be leaving the algorithms alone.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  I disagree. I think the algorithms are fundamentally immoral because they promote content that gets "engagement". Which includes and in many cases prioritizes content that people have engaged with because it causes a negative response. Rather than pushing good* content, it prioritizes lowest common denominator, reality tv, desperate pundit, fast food, self congratulatory, outrage porn garbage. *By good, I simply mean thoughtful, high quality, factual, educational, or otherwise uplifting content regardless of politics
  - ShroudedNight 5y ago
    I don't think "Good" is unambiguous enough to trust the platforms to promote it. How about simply "related"? Show people the content they've explicitly asked for. If people explicitly ask for outrageous content, then fine, but we needn't force feed it to society.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      Algorithms don't work like this though: content that feeds outrage disproportionately outranks content which doesn't. Algorithms don't discriminate "content" by it's actual content: they keyword match and look for clicks, and build a pretty perfect radicalization pathway more easily then they build a discourse [1]. You have probably experienced this: almost everyone has the experience of wanting to see some particular YouTube video, but opened it in an Incognito tab (or just avoided it) explicitly because they know the topic will prime the YouTube homepage to fill with nothing but things you don't want to see. [1] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/youtube-far-right-radicalization-study-877061/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/youtube-fa...

spaced-out 5y ago

At the same time, the Civil Rights Movement aggressively used boycotts, protests, and shaming campaigns to push for racial equality.

synergy20 5y ago
you're out if you still think about 'equality', it's all about 'equity' these days, 'equality' is no longer good enough.
- spaced-out 5y ago
  Maybe that's your opinion, but you don't speak for everyone.
  - synergy20 5y ago
    it's sarcasm, sadly these days the main media and our school districts are all about 'equity', teachers are all re-trained to use equity instead of equality right now.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  The subtle difference you’re pointing out is significant. Equality under the law is moral and ethical. Forced equality of outcomes is immoral and unethical, and is just collectivist Marxism rebranded.

IX-103 5y ago

There's a difference between disagreeing with a position and finding it "abhorrent". Your evidence with regards to interracial marriages does not support your point. Whether "something can be discussed" is an entirely different question than than "do you support position X". The very fact that they were able to take a poll is strong evidence that talking about it was not verboten.

pessimizer 5y ago
This is simply not true, and a strange argument. Child pornography is discussed because people find it abhorrent. US politics has largely revolved around the prevention of interracial relationships for at least a century and a half, so the idea that people didn't (and don't) find them abhorrent is bizarre and ahistorical.
- guythedudebro 5y ago
  > US politics has largely revolved around the prevention of interracial relationships for at least a century and a half What
- IX-103 5y ago
  Again you are conflating finding the discussion of a practice as abhorrent with finding the implementation of a practice abhorrent.

XorNot 5y ago

> In today’s environment, that leads to deplatforming In the historical environment it led to people being killed by the neighborhood mob when they decided to lynch the black man[1] In todays environment it leads to genocide[2]. It is morally laughable to compare deplatforming to the consequences of the free spread of misinformation, propaganda and hate rhetoric. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#Social_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...